


Iter

by Simply8Steps



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death(s), Gen, canon-typical angst, seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 09:59:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11056602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Simply8Steps/pseuds/Simply8Steps
Summary: Everything happens again and again. If so - why not have it be the happy things?





	Iter

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted for Make Laura Happy (MLH) 6 at LJ on 05/16/2009. Apparently my conception for "making Laura happy" is... odd. Also, the title, 'Iter', plays off of the Latin word for "journey".

It is a repetitive cycle. She escapes death, she lives, and she mourns. What has her life cost others?  
  


* * *

  
It was hard to breathe.  
  
That was a shame since it was the first time in a while that she was breathing non-recycled air. _Fresh air._  
  
“Laura, are you alright?” The soft voice is warm. Her name, it was another thing that she has missed, and she smiles wryly at her companion. A priestess, of all people, had become her confidante. Who would have known?  
  
“Yes, Elosha, thank you.”  
  
This was just one moment, one moment of many to remember later when rain soaked through her clothing just as blood soaked through a book of prophecies – words that predicted death, and yet, she was alive (though dying) and her friend was not. She wonders why the rain, so cold everywhere else would be warm on her cheeks.  
  
Faith and a cost in blood. It should have been hers.  
  


* * *

  
“Laura you have to take care of them. Stay strong for them.”  
  
“Okay, mom.” A kiss. “Don’t worry anymore.”  
  
“… Love you, honey.”  
  
“Me too.”  
  
Laura wished that she hadn’t promised. Under the fountain that day, she wished that she hadn’t promised her mother anything. All she had done was break them into pieces. _Like the drops of water hitting the surface of the pool._  
  
If they were gone, did that mean she still had to be strong?  
  
She wished, a bit, that she had gone into the car with them – had gone home for a visit with them when her father had asked.  
  
She laughs bitterly when she finally notices the people standing and staring – pointing at her. _‘This was the only pool big enough to drown my sorrows in. Sorry for invading your property.’_  
  
She hates the cliché.  
  


* * *

  
What does it mean?  
  
In her dreams, she remembers leaping, but instead of the hard and painful impact with a lanky body and hard ground, there is only the ground.  
  
What does it mean?  
  
There was the innocent smile, the round face, and the curly hair that made her hand itch for a comb.  
  
What does it mean?  
  
Fallen through only empty air, she realizes that the pain is only from impact and not in her breast, her loss of breath not imminent but just the result of physics and all its lies.  
  
What does it mean?  
  
She remembers eyes: blue or brown? Murdered or murderer? It doesn’t matter, because both are equally dead and gone, and she wept.  
  
“What does it mean?”  
  
“It means that the cancer’s gone Madame President. Hopefully, for good.”  
  
Behind the gruff doctor’s shoulder, she sees Billy’s smiling face, and hopes that the red blood she sees does not mean anything. If she wasn’t the dying leader, then the visions meant nothing. They were simply hallucinations.  
  
Her hopes don’t make the morgue feel any warmer.  
  


* * *

  
Sometimes, she hated people.  
  
 _Mam, is it true that you and Adar are very close? Is it true that you are having an affair?_ She left only to return minutes later thinking that she’d be glad to be alive in politics after this. _No, and I would kindly ask that you, despite all of your rights as members of the press to be respectful, if not for my or the President’s position, then for his wife and children. Thank you._  
  


* * *

  
She was tired of surviving. Her new diaries joined the old blood-stained copy of Pythia in her desk drawer. The smaller slips of yellowed paper rest where they fell – trampled into the New Caprican dirt. It conserved much more space to have all her regrets lying in one place.  
  
The candles were warm in the chill that filled the cabin. The candlelight made the light brown skin in the picture glow. The bundle in the woman’s arms remained. _Life._ Life had no right to make Tory apologize in its place. She was only human after all.  
  
The prayer beads, the gift of an old friend, rolled easily through now practiced fingers.  
  
Once again, she was still alive – while others, thousands – lay dead on the planet left behind.  
  
She questions why she was alive if only to have a well-remembered lost voice answer: “because you have to lead them home first, Laura”.  
  
The cost in blood should have been hers. A leader should bleed for her people, not the other way around.  
  


* * *

  
_Earth._  
  
She was still alive.  
  


* * *

  
_Earth._  
  
She found Kara in what used to be the memorial corridor. Most of the memories have been stripped from the walls, but one pair hasn’t.  
  
“It’s a nice picture.” And it was, the picture screamed ‘Starbuck’.  
  
Kara Thrace drew a hand to cover her own trembling ones. Her breath catches at the sereneness in Kara’s eyes. “You have to make your peace with living when you’re supposed to be dead.”  
  
It was almost angelic.  
  
The last thought tells her that she has been hearing too much of Gaius Baltar.  
  


* * *

  
_Fifty billion._ Fifty billion people died the day she received her death sentence, and yet, she lived. She wondered at the cosmic irony of it all, the mathematical absurdity.  
  
“Now, if we are even going to survive as a _species_ , then we need to get the hell out of here and _start having babies_.”  
  
But now she’s here, and she can feel it all. The grass, the warm soil, the air… She was alive, and for once, it didn’t cost her people, _always her people_ , anything.  
  
Lifting the binoculars back to her face, she sees five men acting like children playing Leonon explorers in the grass. Later, she sees the slow progression of people already separating and migrating – the fleet dividing, and she feels a pang in her heart. They were going to have to learn on their own how to start over.  
  
Turning back to the look at the birds tumbling in the sky, she laughs. Unrestricted, even by death, to enjoy life again.  
  


* * *

  
Repeat. _Iter._ Journey.


End file.
